Cars and buses to be banned from busy Strand junction
Westminster Council is set to embark on a pedestrianisation of the busy junction abutting Strand and Aldwych at a cost of £18m.
The scheme will see the part of the Strand which runs next to King’s College London and Somerset House closed to traffic.
It will be replaced with what Westminster Council describe as a “world-class public space” by the summer of this year.
The roads closed are currently used by buses and traffic heading from Holborn and Fleet Street towards the West End and over Waterloo Bridge.
Aldwych itself will be made into a two-way street.
The scheme comes amid continued complaints about road closures to traffic in 2020.
The “low traffic neighbourhood scheme” has angered taxi and minicab drivers, saying that a raft of pedestrianisations across the capital has hurt their trade as well as left vulnerable, lower-mobility individuals without the option of private transport.
Cllr Matthew Green, Westminster City Council Cabinet Member for Business and Planning, said: “Coronavirus has taught us both how to work at pace and how to improve collaboration with partners. We’ve worked hard with project stakeholders to being forward our plans which can now be implemented more quickly and at a lower cost delivering a major new public space for Westminster as early as summer 2021.”
The Council claim the scheme will not increase traffic in the area.